Fireplaces are natural magnets for small boys. The large wood stove at home was a great example. Dad had welded steel pipes and a fan into it to blow out hot air. The dryers at the swimming pool were generally too high for me to reach and even when I got Dad to hit one for me the air didn't really reach me either. But this wood stove: at my size you could stand in front of it and get hair, swimsuit and everything else dry all at once. You could even flick water on it and watch it skitter and pop across the top. The stove had one problem: for short arms the doors were too hot and too heavy to open without getting burned.
The fireplace at Grandpa's farmhouse on the other hand had only a screen to keep the sparks from jumping out onto the carpet. One morning there after breakfast I wandered into the living room. The fireplace was still glowing and, what was better, no one was around to shoo me away from it. After a little while I discovered that the poker, while heavy, made a good sword and the bellows were good for getting flames from the coals. A mysterious knob stuck out above the fireplace just within arms reach with a bench. But the knob only made a quiet metallic scraping sound. The girls sounded like they were starting something in the kitchen so I wandered outside before I could be conscripted into running errands.
A little while later I returned to see the girls all standing outside with towels and wet hair and a haze around the house. And something smelled horrible. While they had been doing perms I had stoked up the fire, then closed the damper (effectively closing the chimney) before wandering outside. At that point Grandpa was inside checking things out.
Sometime later I sat down in an overstuffed chair placed in the middle of the living room at one end. Grandpa was at the other end standing in front of the fireplace with a stern look on his face. Grandma was sitting to one side saying "Now, Fred, don't be too hard on him." Which really didn't help but terrify me the more. My memory ends there (nothing interesting followed I suppose.) And that is how I got into trouble with everyone at the farm.
The fireplace at Grandpa's farmhouse on the other hand had only a screen to keep the sparks from jumping out onto the carpet. One morning there after breakfast I wandered into the living room. The fireplace was still glowing and, what was better, no one was around to shoo me away from it. After a little while I discovered that the poker, while heavy, made a good sword and the bellows were good for getting flames from the coals. A mysterious knob stuck out above the fireplace just within arms reach with a bench. But the knob only made a quiet metallic scraping sound. The girls sounded like they were starting something in the kitchen so I wandered outside before I could be conscripted into running errands.
A little while later I returned to see the girls all standing outside with towels and wet hair and a haze around the house. And something smelled horrible. While they had been doing perms I had stoked up the fire, then closed the damper (effectively closing the chimney) before wandering outside. At that point Grandpa was inside checking things out.
Sometime later I sat down in an overstuffed chair placed in the middle of the living room at one end. Grandpa was at the other end standing in front of the fireplace with a stern look on his face. Grandma was sitting to one side saying "Now, Fred, don't be too hard on him." Which really didn't help but terrify me the more. My memory ends there (nothing interesting followed I suppose.) And that is how I got into trouble with everyone at the farm.
1 comment:
Haha, we all make mistakes. We never had a fireplace when I was growing up or I'm sure my brother would have done the same thing.
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